Growing Gills

A Fly Fisherman's Journey

I know that most families have stories of fishing trips, but with mine it's a little different. These aren't tales told and born anew each time everyone's back together. These aren't stories marking the one or two outings when a father took a son fishing. These stories are our lives, the cornerstones of our existence, the reason that we continue to wake up and give the world another go. The tales are the points along our linear journey through this world and the only thing to assure us that we ever lived. In the quilt work of our lives these are the patches stitched together by our breathing, the only thing that holds it all together. Fishing is not a hobby; it is who we are.          

David Joy’s Southern memoir details a North Carolina fly fisherman’s youthful experiences in the Outer Banks and Piedmont to his pursuit of native brook trout in the Appalachian Mountains. This work of literary nonfiction encapsulates the philosophical underpinnings of a man defined by fish, family, water, solitude, environment, and wilderness.